Gordon Matta-Clark is back in the Bronx

Best known for his monumental cuts, holes, apertures, and excisions to the facades of derelict homes and historic buildings in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and abroad, Gordon Matta-Clark’s work conveys a potent critique of architecture’s role vis-à-vis the capitalist system. Taking as a point of departure the pivotal series of “cuts” produced in the Bronx in the early 1970s that led to his further exploration of the city as a field of action, Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect will examine the artist’s pioneering social, relational, and activist approach. The exhibition highlights the political dialogue inherent in the artist’s artistic interventions—from his concern for the extreme plight of the homeless, his interest in direct community engagement, his belief that we should expand our lived experience of a city into its underground and other inaccessible spaces, and his commentary on development and socioeconomic stratification. Source: Bronxmuseum.org

The son of surrealist artist Roberto Matta and a graduate of the Cornell School of Architecture, Matta-Clark took a guerrilla approach to both his work and his environs, perhaps best exemplified by Window Blowout (1976), a series of photos of desolate housing projects included in an exhibit at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in midtown. The night before the exhibit opened, Matta-Clark took an air gun and shot out the building’s windows, infuriating the institute’s founder, architect Peter Eisenman. The next day, Matta-Clark’s photos were removed from the exhibit and he was barred from the gallery. He died in 1978, of cancer, at 35 — and his work is once again drawing attention, According to Vulture.com

Courtesy: The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark/Courtesy of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York/London

Courtesy: The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark/Courtesy of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York/London

Courtesy: The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark/Courtesy of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York/London